Research Interests
Environmental politics, indigenous politics in the Andes and Amazon, critical international relations, critical global political economy, political ecology, social movements, Latin America
Biography
Rachel (she/her/hers) is a Ph.D. student in Political Science. Her research interests lie at the intersection of indigenous rights, land contestations, and the geopolitics of natural resources in Latin America. She is interested in questions regarding conflicts over lithium governance, and indigenous autonomy and rights to self-determination in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina (the lithium triangle). She seeks to critically examine these questions as situated within global supply chains and environmental apparatuses increasingly dominated by China and the world’s transition to renewable energy. She is also interested in similar themes in the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests.
Prior to coming to UW-Madison, Rachel worked as a Teaching Assistant at the National University of Singapore teaching Politics and Sociology, in academic advising, intercultural engagement and mental health support roles at Yale-NUS College, a Geography high school teacher in Cambodia, and an experiential educator in Peru. Rachel is also a 2022-23 Southern Wisconsin Aspire Regional Collaborative (SWARC) Teaching scholar.
Education
B.A. in Political Science and Latin American Studies, Macalester College